the Breakfast Dilemma

A very good TED talk about how the freedom to make choices can often hurt our potential to be happy.

I have my own language for this that I call the Breakfast Dilemma:

I love breakfast more than any other meal. But when I go to a good breakfast place that has an extensive menu, I come across the Breakfast Dilemma. I want to eat everything, but I can only physically consume one or maybe two things (nowhere was this dilemma more pronounced than at Bouchon's in Las Vegas, the greatest breakfast place I have ever eaten at).

Do I go for Eggs Benedict? French Toast with powdered sugar and fruit compote? The Hungry Lumberjack? I will spend more time on breakfast menus than any other kind of menu. And I never feel confident when I make my order that I'm choosing the best one for me.

This mental anguish continues long after the choosing itself, especially if someone I am with orders one of my alternatives. The scrumptious Eggs Benedict of Now turns to sand in my mouth, as I dream of the Huevos Rancheros that might have been.

If there were fewer options - if this restaurant was only good at making one thing - I would actually be happier with my breakfast experience. Although my brain is programmed to believe otherwise. We believe having more choices is never a bad thing, because how could it be? And yet it does, because those roads untaken will torment you.

The Breakfast Dilemma; it'll get you every time.